Produced by Janet Blenkinship and also, thanks to Michael
Kerwin of Occidental College for supplying images of the
missing pages from the book I had in hand, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
This "O-P Book" Is an Authorized Reprint of the Original Edition,
Produced by Microfilm-Xerography by University Microfilms, Inc., Ann
Arbor, Michigan, 1966
NOTES ON MY BOOKS
BY
JOSEPH CONRAD
GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
MCMXXI
COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
NOTES ON MY BOOKS
ALMAYER'S FOLLY
I am informed that in criticizing that literature which preys on
strange people and prowls in far-off countries, under the shade of
palms, in the unsheltered glare of sunbeaten beaches, amongst honest
cannibals and the more sophisticated pioneers of our glorious virtues, a
lady--distinguished in the world of letters--summed up her disapproval
of it by saying that the tales it produced were "de-civilized." And in
that sentence not only the tales but, I apprehend, the strange people
and the far-off countries also, are finally condemned in a verdict of
contemptuous dislike.
A woman's judgment: intuitive, clever, expressed with felicitous
charm--infallible. A judgment that has nothing to do with justice. The
critic and the judge seems to think that in those distant lands all joy
is a yell and a war dance, all pathos is a howl and a ghastly grin of
filed teeth, and that the solution of all problems is found in the
barrel of a revolver or on the point of an assegai. And yet it is not
so. But the erring magistrate may plead in excuse the misleading nature
of the evidence.
The picture of life, there as here, is drawn with the same elaboration
of detail, coloured with the same tints. Only in the cruel serenity of
the sky, under the merciless brilliance of the sun, the dazzled eye
misses the delicate detail, sees only the strong outlines, while the
colours, in the steady light, seem crude and-without shadow.
Nevertheless it is the same picture.
And there is a bond between us and that humanity so far away. I am
speaking here of men and women--not of the charming and graceful
phantoms that move about in our mud and smoke and are softly luminous
with the radiance of all our virtues; that are possessed of all
refinements, of all sensibilities, of all wisdom--but, being only
phantoms, possess no heart.
The sympathies of those are (probably) with the immortals: with the
angels above or the devils below. I am content to sympathize with
common mortals, no matter where they live; in houses or in tents, in the
streets under a fog, or in the forests behind the dark line of dismal
mangroves that fringe the vast solitude of the sea. For, their
land--like ours--lies under the inscrutable eyes of the Most High. Their
hearts--like ours--must endure the load of the gifts from Heaven: the
curse of facts and the blessing of illusions, the bitterness of our
wisdom and the deceptive consolation of our folly.
J. C.
1895.
AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS
"An Outcast of the Islands" is my second novel in the absolute sense of
the word; second in conception, second in execution, second as it were
in its essence. There was no hesitation, half-formed plan, vague idea,
or the vaguest reverie of anything else between it and "Almayer's
Folly." The only doubt I suffered from, after the publication of
"Almayer's Folly," was whether I should write another line for print.
Those days, now grown so dim, had their poignant moments. Neither in my
mind nor in my heart had I then given up the sea. In truth I was
clinging to it desperately, all the more desperately because, against my
will, I could not help feeling that there was something changed in my
relation to it. "Almayer's Folly" had been finished and done with. The
mood itself was gone. But it had left the memory of an experience that,
both in thought and emotion, was unconnected with the sea, and I suppose
that part of my moral being which is rooted in consistency was badly
shaken. I was a victim of contrary stresses which produced a state of
immobility. I gave myself up to indolence. Since it was impossible for
me to face both ways I had elected to face nothing. The discovery of new
values in life is a very chaotic experience; there is a tremendous
amount of jostling and confusion and a momentary feeling of darkness. I
let my spirit float supine over that chaos.
A phrase of Edward Garnett's is, as a matter of fact, responsible for
this book. The first of the friends I made for myself by my pen it was
but natural that he should be the recipient, at that time, of my
confidences. One evening when we had dined together and he had listened
to the account of my perplexities (I fear he must have been growing a
little tired of them) he pointed out that there was no need to determine
my future absolutely. Then he added: "You have the style, you have the
temperament; why not write another?" I believe that as far as one man
may wish to influence another man's life Edward Garnett had a great
desire that I should go on writing. At that time, and I may say, ever
afterwards, he was always very patient and gentle with me. What strikes
me most, however, in the phrase quoted above which was offered to me in
a tone of detachment is not its gentleness but its effective wisdom. Had
he said, "Why not go on writing," it is very probable he would have
scared me away from pen and ink for ever; but there was nothing either
to frighten one or arouse one's antagonism in the mere suggestion to
"write another." And thus a dead point in the revolution of my affairs
was insidiously got over. The word "another" did it. At about eleven
o'clock of a nice London night, Edward and I walked along interminable
streets talking of many things, and I remember that on getting home I
sat down and wrote about half a page of "An Outcast of the Islands"
before I slept. This was committing myself definitely, I won't say to
another life, but to another book. There is apparently something in my
character which will not allow me to abandon for good any piece of work
I have begun. I have laid aside many beginnings. I have laid them aside
with sorrow, with disgust, with rage, with melancholy and even with
self-contempt; but even at the worst I had an uneasy consciousness that
I would have to go back to them.
"An Outcast of the Islands" belongs to those novels of mine that were
never laid aside; and though it brought me the qualification of "exotic
writer" I don't think the charge was at all justified. For the life of
me I don't see that there is the slightest exotic spirit in the
conception or style of that novel. It is certainly the most _tropical_
of my eastern tales. The mere scenery got a great hold on me as I went
on, perhaps because (I may just as well confess that) the story itself
was never very near my heart. It engaged my imagination much more than
my affection. As to my feeling for Willems it was but the regard one
cannot help having for one's own creation. Obviously I could not be
indifferent to a man on whose head I had brought so much evil simply by
imagining him such as he appears in the novel--and that, too, on a very
slight foundation.
The man who suggested Willems to me was not particularly interesting in
himself. My interest was aroused by his dependent position, his strange,
dubious status of a mistrusted, disliked, worn-out European living on
the reluctant toleration of that Settlement hidden in the heart of the
forest-land, up that sombre stream which our ship was the only white
men's ship to visit. With his hollow, clean-shaved cheeks, a heavy grey
moustache and eyes without any expression whatever, clad always in a
spotless sleeping suit much befrogged in front, which left his lean neck
wholly uncovered, and with his bare feet in a pair of straw slippers, he
wandered silently amongst the houses in daylight, almost as dumb as an
animal and apparently much more homeless. I don't know what he did with
himself at night. He must have had a place, a hut, a palm-leaf shed,
some sort of hovel where he kept his razor and his change of sleeping
suits. An air of futile mystery hung over him, something not exactly
dark but obviously ugly. The only definite statement I could extract
from anybody was that it was he who had "brought the Arabs into the
river." That must have happened many years before. But how did he bring
them into the river? He could hardly have done it in his arms like a lot
of kittens. I knew that Almayer founded the chronology of all his
misfortunes on the date of that fateful advent; and yet the very first
time we dined with Almayer there was Willems sitting at table with us in
the manner of the skeleton at the feast, obviously shunned by everybody,
never addressed by any one, and for all recognition of his existence
getting now and then from Almayer a venomous glance which I observed
with great surprise. In the course of the whole evening he ventured one
single remark which I didn't catch because his articulation was
imperfect, as of a man who had forgotten how to speak. I was the only
person who seemed aware of the sound. Willems subsided. Presently he
retired, pointedly unnoticed--into the forest maybe? Its immensity was
there, within three hundred yards of the verandah, ready to swallow up
anything. Almayer conversing with my captain did not stop talking while
he glared angrily at the retreating back. Didn't that fellow bring the
Arabs into the river! Nevertheless Willems turned up next morning on
Almayer's verandah. From the bridge of the steamer I could see plainly
these two, breakfasting together, tête à tête and, I suppose, in dead
silence, one with his air of being no longer interested in this world
and the other raising his eyes now and then with intense dislike.
It was clear that in those days Willems lived on Almayer's charity. Yet
on returning two months later to Sambir I heard that he had gone on an
expedition up the river in charge of a steam-launch belonging to the
Arabs, to make some discovery or other. On account of the strange
reluctance that everyone manifested to talk about Willems it was
impossible for me to get at the rights of that transaction. Moreover, I
was a newcomer, the youngest of the company, and, I suspect, not judged
quite fit as yet for a full confidence. I was not much concerned about
that exclusion. The faint suggestion of plots and mysteries pertaining
to all matters touching Almayer's affairs amused me vastly. Almayer was
obviously very much affected. I believe he missed Willems immensely. He
wore an air of sinister preoccupation and talked confidentially with my
captain. I could catch only snatches of mumbled sentences. Then one
morning as I came along the deck to take my place at the breakfast table
Almayer checked himself in his low-toned discourse. My captain's face
was perfectly impenetrable. There was a moment of profound silence and
then as if unable to contain himself Almayer burst out in a loud vicious
tone:
"One thing's certain; if he finds anything worth having up there they
will poison him like a dog."
Disconnected though it was, that phrase, as food for thought, was
distinctly worth hearing. We left the river three days afterwards and I
never returned to Sambir; but whatever happened to the protagonist of my
Willems nobody can deny that I have recorded for him a less squalid
fate.
J. C.
1919.
NIGGER OF THE 'NARCISSUS'
TO MY READERS IN AMERICA
From that evening when James Wait joined the ship--late for the muster
of the crew--to the moment when he left us in the open sea, shrouded in
sailcloth, through the open port, I had much to do with him. He was in
my watch. A negro in a British forecastle is a lonely being. He has no
chums. Yet James Wait, afraid of death and making her his accomplice,
was an impostor of some character--mastering our compassion, scornful of
our sentimentalism, triumphing over our suspicions.
But in the book he is nothing; he is merely the centre of the ship's
collective psychology and the pivot of the action. Yet he, who in the
family circle and amongst my friends is familiarly referred to as the
Nigger, remains very precious to me. For the book written round him is
not the sort of thing that can be attempted more than once in a
life-time. It is the book by which, not as a novelist perhaps, but as an
artist striving for the utmost sincerity of expression, I am willing to
stand or fall. Its pages are the tribute of my unalterable and profound
affection for the ships, the seamen, the winds and the great sea--the
moulders of my youth, the companions of the best years of my life.
After writing the last words of that book, in the revulsion of feeling
before the accomplished task, I understood that I had done with the sea,
and that henceforth I had to be a writer. And almost without laying down
the pen I wrote a preface, trying to express the spirit in which I was
entering on the task of my new life. That preface on advice (which I now
think was wrong) was never published with the book. But the late W. E.
Henley, who had the courage at that time (1897) to serialize my "Nigger"
in the _New Review_ judged it worthy to be printed as an afterword at
the end of the last instalment of the tale.
I am glad that this book which means so much to me is coming out again,
under its proper title of "The Nigger of the _Narcissus_" and under the
auspices of my good friends and publishers Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co.
into the light of publicity.
Half the span of a generation has passed since W. E. Henley, after
reading two chapters, sent me a verbal message: "Tell Conrad that if
the rest is up to the sample it shall certainly come out in the _New
Review_." The most gratifying recollection of my writer's life!
And here is the Suppressed Preface.
JOSEPH CONRAD.
1914.
PREFACE
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should
carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as
a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the
visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one,
underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in
its colours, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and
in the facts of life what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and
essential--their one illuminating and convincing quality--the very truth
of their existence. The artist, then, like the thinker or the scientist,
seeks the truth and makes his appeal. Impressed by the aspect of the
world the thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts--whence,
presently, emerging, they make their appeal to those qualities of our
being that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They
speak authoritatively to our common-sense, to our intelligence, to our
desire of peace or to our desire of unrest; not seldom to our
prejudices, sometimes to our fears, often to our egoism--but always to
our credulity. And their words are heard with reverence, for their
concern is with weighty matters: with the cultivation of our minds and
the proper care of our bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions,
with the perfection of the means and the glorification of our precious
aims.
It is otherwise with the artist.
Confronted by the same enigmatical spectacle the artist descends within
himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be
deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is
made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which,
because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out
of sight within the more resisting and hard qualities--like the
vulnerable body within a steel armour. His appeal is less loud, more
profound, less distinct, more stirring--and sooner forgotten. Yet its
effect endures for ever. The changing wisdom of successive generations
discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist
appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to
that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore, more
permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder,
to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and
beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all
creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that
knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity
in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in
fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all
humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
It is only some such train of thought, or rather of feeling, that can in
a measure explain the aim of the attempt, made in the tale which
follows, to present an unrestful episode in the obscure lives of a few
individuals out of all the disregarded multitude of the bewildered, the
simple and the voiceless. For, if any part of truth dwells in the belief
confessed above, it becomes evident that there is not a place of
splendour or a dark corner of the earth that does not deserve, if only a
passing glance of wonder and pity. The motive, then, may be held to
justify the matter of the work; but this preface, which is simply an
avowal of endeavour, cannot end here--for the avowal is not yet
complete.
Fiction--if it at all aspires to be art--appeals to temperament. And in
truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of
one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle
and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and
creates the moral, the emotional atmosphere of the place and time. Such
an appeal to be effective must be an impression conveyed through the
senses; and, in fact, it cannot be made in any other way, because
temperament, whether individual or collective, is not amenable to
persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the
artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its
appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the secret
spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire to the
plasticity of sculpture, to the colour of painting, and to the magic
suggestiveness of music--which is the art of arts. And it is only
through complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form
and substance; it is only through an unremitting never-discouraged care
for the shape and ring of sentences that an approach can be made to
plasticity, to colour, and that the light of magic suggestiveness may be
brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface
of words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless
usage.
The sincere endeavour to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on
that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by faltering,
weariness or reproach, is the only valid justification for the worker in
prose. And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who in the
fulness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand
specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly
improved, or encouraged, or frightened, or shocked, or charmed, must run
thus:--My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the
written word to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to
make you _see_. That--and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed,
you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement,
consolation, fear, charm--all you demand--and, perhaps, also that
glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.
To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a
passing phase of life, is only the beginning of the task. The task
approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly,
without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes in
the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its colour,
its form; and through its movement, its form, and its colour, reveal the
substance of its truth--disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and
passion within the core of each convincing moment. In a single-minded
attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may
perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the
presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in
the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of
the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in
uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the
visible world.
It is evident that he who, rightly or wrongly, holds by the convictions
expressed above cannot be faithful to any one of the temporary formulas
of his craft. The enduring part of them--the truth which each only
imperfectly veils--should abide with him as the most precious of his
possessions, but they all: Realism, Romanticism, Naturalism, even the
unofficial sentimentalism (which, like the poor, is exceedingly
difficult to get rid of), all these gods must, after a short period of
fellowship, abandon him--even on the very threshold of the temple--to
the stammerings of his conscience and to the outspoken consciousness of
the difficulties of his work. In that uneasy solitude the supreme cry of
Art for Art, itself, loses the exciting ring of its apparent immorality.
It sounds far off. It has ceased to be a cry, and is heard only as a
whisper, often incomprehensible, but at times and faintly encouraging.
Sometimes, stretched at ease in the shade of a roadside tree, we watch
the motions of a labourer in a distant field, and after a time begin to
wonder languidly as to what the fellow may be at. We watch the movements
of his body, the waving of his arms, we see him bend down, stand up,
hesitate, begin again. It may add to the charm of an idle hour to be
told the purpose of his exertions. If we know he is trying to lift a
stone, to dig a ditch, to uproot a stump, we look with a more real
interest at his efforts; we are disposed to condone the jar of his
agitation upon the restfulness of the landscape; and even, if in a
brotherly frame of mind, we may bring ourselves to forgive his failure.
We understood his object, and, after all, the fellow has tried, and
perhaps he had not the strength--and perhaps he had not the knowledge.
We forgive, go on our way--and forget.
And so it is with the workman of art. Art is long and life is short, and
success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of strength to travel so
far, we talk a little about the aim--the aim of art, which, like life
itself, is inspiring, difficult--obscured by mists. It is not in the
clear logic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of
one of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It
is not less great, but only more difficult.
To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands busy about the work of
the earth, and compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to
glance for a moment at the surrounding vision of form and colour, of
sunshine and shadows; to make them pause for a look, for a sigh, for a
smile--such is the aim, difficult and evanescent, and reserved only for
a very few to achieve. But sometimes, by the deserving and the
fortunate, even that task is accomplished. And when it is
accomplished--behold!--all the truth of life is there: a moment of
vision, a sigh, a smile--and the return to an eternal rest.
J. C.
1897.
TALES OF UNREST
Of the five stories in this volume The Lagoon, the last in order, is the
earliest in date. It is the first short story I ever wrote and marks, in
a manner of speaking, the end of my first phase, the Malayan phase with
its special subject and its verbal suggestions. Conceived in the same
mood which produced "Almayer's Folly" and "An Outcast of the Islands,"
it is told in the same breath (with what was left of it, that is, after
the end of "An Outcast"), seen with the same vision rendered in the same
method--if such a thing as method did exist then in my conscious
relation to this new adventure of writing for print. I doubt it very
much. One does one's work first and theorizes about it afterwards. It is
a very amusing and egotistical occupation of no use whatever to any one
and just as likely as not to lead to false conclusions.
Anybody can see that between the last paragraph of "An Outcast" and the
first of The Lagoon there has been no change of pen, figuratively
speaking. It happens also to be literally true. It was the same pen: a
common steel pen. Having been charged with a certain lack of emotional
faculty I am glad to be able to say that on one occasion at least I did
give way to a sentimental impulse. I thought the pen had been a good pen
and that it had done enough for me, and so, with the idea of keeping it
for a sort of memento on which I could look later with tender eyes, I
put it into my waistcoat pocket. Afterwards it used to turn up in all
sorts of places, at the bottom of small drawers, among my studs in
cardboard boxes, till at last it found permanent rest in a large wooden
bowl containing some loose keys, bits of sealing wax, bits of string,
small broken chains, a few buttons, and similar minute wreckage that
washes out of a man's life into such receptacles. I would catch sight of
it from time to time with a distinct feeling of satisfaction till, one
day, I perceived with horror that there were two old pens in there. How
the other pen found its way into the bowl instead of the fireplace or
waste-paper basket I can't imagine, but there the two were, lying side
by side, both encrusted with ink and completely undistinguishable from
each other. It was very distressing, but being determined not to share
my sentiment between two pens or run the risk of sentimentalizing over a
mere stranger, I threw them both out of the window into a flower
bed--which strikes me now as a poetical grave for the remnants of one's
past.
But the tale remained. It was first fixed in print in the _Cornhill
Magazine_, being my first appearance in a serial of any kind; and I have
lived long enough to see it most agreeably guyed by Mr. Max Beerbohm in
a volume of parodies entitled "A Christmas Garland," where I found
myself in very good company. I was immensely gratified. I began to
believe in my public existence. I have much to thank The Lagoon for.
My next effort in short story writing was a departure--I mean a
departure from the Malay Archipelago. Without premeditation, without
sorrow, without rejoicing and almost without noticing it, I stepped into
the very different atmosphere of An Outpost of Progress. I found there a
different moral attitude. I seemed able to capture new reactions, new
suggestions, and even new rhythms for my paragraphs. For a moment I
fancied myself a new man--a most exciting illusion. It clung to me for
some time, monstrous, half conviction and half hope as to its body with
an iridescent tail of dreams and with a changeable head like a plastic
mask. It was only later that I perceived that in common with the rest of
men nothing could deliver me from my fatal consistency. We cannot escape
from ourselves.
An Outpost of Progress is the lightest part of the loot I carried off
from Central Africa, the main portion being of course The Heart of
Darkness. Other men have found a lot of quite different things there and
I have the comfortable conviction that what I took would not have been
of much use to anybody else. And it must be said that it was but a very
small amount of plunder. All of it could go into one's breast pocket
when folded neatly. As for the story itself it is true enough in its
essentials. The sustained invention of a really telling lie demands a
talent which I do not possess.
The Idiots is such an obviously derivative piece of work that it is
impossible for me to say anything about it here. The suggestion of it
was not mental but visual: the actual idiots. It was after an interval
of long groping amongst vague impulses and hesitations which ended in
the production of "The Nigger" that I turned to my third short story in
the order of time, the first in this volume: Karain: A Memory.
Reading it after many years Karain produced on me the effect of
something seen through a pair of glasses from a rather advantageous
position. In that story I had not gone back to the Archipelago, I had
only turned for another look at it. I admit that I was absorbed by the
distant view, so absorbed that I didn't notice then that the _motif_ of
the story is almost identical with the _motif_ of The Lagoon. However,
the idea at the back is very different; but the story is mainly made
memorable to me by the fact that it was my first contribution to
_Blackwood's Magazine_ and that it led to my personal acquaintance with
Mr. William Blackwood whose guarded appreciation I felt nevertheless to
be genuine, and prized accordingly. Karain was begun on a sudden impulse
only three days after I wrote the last line of "The Nigger," and the
recollection of its difficulties is mixed up with the worries of the
unfinished Return, the last pages of which I took up again at the time;
the only instance in my life when I made an attempt to write with both
hands at once as it were.
Indeed my innermost feeling, now, is that The Return is a left-handed
production. Looking through that story lately I had the material
impression of sitting under a large and expensive umbrella in the loud
drumming of a furious rain-shower. It was very distracting. In the
general uproar one could hear every individual drop strike on the stout
and distended silk. Mentally, the reading rendered me dumb for the
remainder of the day, not exactly with astonishment but with a sort of
dismal wonder. I don't want to talk disrespectfully of any pages of
mine. Psychologically there were no doubt good reasons for my attempt;
and it was worth while, if only to see of what excesses I was capable in
that sort of virtuosity. In this connection I should like to confess my
surprise on finding that notwithstanding all its apparatus of analysis
the story consists for the most part of physical impressions;
impressions of sound and sight, railway station, streets, a trotting
horse, reflections in mirrors and so on, rendered as if for their own
sake and combined with a sublimated description of a desirable middle
class town-residence which somehow manages to produce a sinister effect.
For the rest any kind word about The Return (and there have been such
words said at different times) awakens in me the liveliest gratitude,
for I know how much the writing of that fantasy has cost me in sheer
toil, in temper and in disillusion.
J. C.
LORD JIM
When this novel first appeared in book form a notion got about that I
had been bolted away with. Some reviewers maintained that the work
starting as a short story had got beyond the writer's control. One or
two discovered internal evidence of the fact, which seemed to amuse
them. They pointed out the limitations of the narrative form. They
argued that no man could have been expected to talk all that time, and
other men to listen so long. It was not, they said, very credible.
After thinking it over for something like sixteen years I am not so sure
about that. Men have been known, both in tropics and in the temperate
zone, to sit up half the night "swapping yarns." This, however, is but
one yarn, yet with interruptions affording some measure of relief; and
in regard to the listeners' endurance, the postulate must be accepted
that the story _was_ interesting. It is the necessary preliminary
assumption. If I hadn't believed that it _was_ interesting I could never
have begun to write it. As to the mere physical possibility we all know
that some speeches in Parliament have taken nearer six than three hours
in delivery; whereas all that part of the book which is Marlow's
narrative can be read through aloud, I should say, in less than three
hours. Besides--though I have kept strictly all such insignificant
details out of the tale--we may presume that there must have been
refreshments on that night, a glass of mineral water of some sort to
help the narrator on.
But, seriously, the truth of the matter is, that my first thought was of
a short story, concerned only with the pilgrim ship episode; nothing
more. And that was a legitimate conception. After writing a few pages,
however, I became for some reason discontented and I laid them aside for
a time. I didn't take them out of the drawer till the late Mr. William
Blackwood suggested I should give something again to his magazine.
It was only then that I perceived that the pilgrim ship episode was a
good starting-point for a free and wandering tale; that it was an event,
too, which could conceivably colour the whole "sentiment of existence"
in a simple and sensitive character. But all these preliminary moods and
stirrings of spirit were rather obscure at the time, and they do not
appear clearer to me now after the lapse of so many years.
The few pages I had laid aside were not without their weight in the
choice of subject. But the whole was re-written deliberately. When I
sat down to it I knew it would be a long book, though I didn't foresee
that it would spread itself over thirteen numbers of _Maga_.
I have been asked at times whether this was not the book of mine I liked
best. I am a great foe to favouritism in public life, in private life,
and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works. As a
matter of principle I will have no favourites; but I don't go so far as
to feel grieved and annoyed by the preference some people give to my
"Lord Jim." I won't even say that I "fail to understand...." No! But
once I had occasion to be puzzled and surprised.
A friend of mine returning from Italy had talked with a lady there who
did not like the book. I regretted that, of course, but what surprised
me was the ground of her dislike. "You know," she said, "it is all so
morbid."
The pronouncement gave me food for an hour's anxious thought. Finally I
arrived at the conclusion that, making due allowances for the subject
itself being rather foreign to women's normal sensibilities, the lady
could not have been an Italian. I wonder whether she was European at
all? In any case, no Latin temperament would have perceived anything
morbid in the acute consciousness of lost honour. Such a consciousness
may be wrong, or it may be right, or it may be condemned as artificial;
and, perhaps, my Jim is not a type of wide commonness. But I can safely
assure my readers that he is not the product of coldly perverted
thinking. He's not a figure of Northern Mists either. One sunny morning
in the commonplace surroundings of an Eastern roadstead, I saw his form
pass by--appealing--significant--under a cloud--perfectly silent. Which
is as it should be. It was for me, with all the sympathy of which I was
capable, to seek fit words for his meaning. He was "one of us."
J. C.
June, 1917.
YOUTH
The three stories in this volume lay no claim to unity of artistic
purpose. The only bond between them is that of the time in which they
were written. They belong to the period immediately following the
publication of "The Nigger of the _Narcissus_," and preceding the first
conception of "Nostromo," two books which, it seems to me, stand apart
and by themselves in the body of my work. It is also the period during
which I contributed to _Maga_; a period dominated by "Lord Jim" and
associated in my grateful memory with the late Mr. William Blackwood's
encouraging and helpful kindness.
"Youth" was not my first contribution to _Maga_. It was the second. But
that story marks the first appearance in the world of the man Marlow,
with whom my relations have grown very intimate in the course of years.
The origins of that gentleman (nobody as far as I know had ever hinted
that he was anything but that)--his origins have been the subject of
some literary speculation of, I am glad to say, a friendly nature.
One would think that I am the proper person to throw a light on the
matter; but in truth I find that it isn't so easy. It is pleasant to
remember that nobody had charged him with fraudulent purposes or looked
down on him as a charlatan; but apart from that he was supposed to be
all sorts of things: a clever screen, a mere device, a "personator," a
familiar spirit, a whispering "dæmon." I myself have been suspected of
a meditated plan for his capture.
That is not so. I made no plans. The man Marlow and I came together in
the casual manner of those health-resort acquaintances which sometimes
ripen into friendships. This one has ripened. For all his assertiveness
in matters of opinion he is not an intrusive person. He haunts my hours
of solitude, when, in silence, we lay our heads together in great
comfort and harmony; but as we part at the end of a tale I am never sure
that it may not be for the last time. Yet I don't think that either of
us would care much to survive the other. In his case, at any rate, his
occupation would be gone and he would suffer from that extinction,
because I suspect him of some vanity. I don't mean vanity in the
Solomonian sense. Of all my people he's the one that has never been a
vexation to my spirit. A most discreet, understanding man....
Even before appearing in book-form "Youth" was very well received. It
lies on me to confess at last, and this is as good a place for it as
another, that I have been all my life--all my two lives--the spoiled
adopted child of Great Britain and even of the Empire; for it was
Australia that gave me my first command. I break out into this
declaration not because of a lurking tendency to megalomania, but, on
the contrary, as a man who has no very notable illusions about himself.
I follow the instinct of vain-glory and humility natural to all mankind.
For it can hardly be denied that it is not their own deserts that men
are most proud of, but rather of their prodigious luck, of their
marvellous fortune: of that in their lives for which thanks and
sacrifices must be offered on the altars of the inscrutable gods.
Heart of Darkness also received a certain amount of notice from the
first; and of its origins this much may be said: it is well known that
curious men go prying into all sorts of places (where they have no
business) and come out of them with all kinds of spoil. This story, and
one other, not in this volume, are all the spoil I brought out from the
centre of Africa, where, really, I had no sort of business. More
ambitious in its scope and longer in the telling, Heart of Darkness is
quite as authentic in fundamentals as Youth. It is, obviously, written
in another mood. I won't characterize the mood precisely, but anybody
can see that it is anything but the mood of wistful regret, of
reminiscent tenderness.
One more remark may be added. Youth is a feat of memory. It is a record
of experience; but that experience, in its facts, in its inwardness and
in its outward colouring, begins and ends in myself. Heart of Darkness
is experience, too; but it is experience pushed a little (and only very
little) beyond the actual facts of the case for the perfectly
legitimate, I believe, purpose of bringing it home to the minds and
bosoms of the readers. There it was no longer a matter of sincere
colouring. It was like another art altogether. That sombre theme had to
be given a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued
vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air and dwell on the ear
after the last note had been struck.
After saying so much there remains the last tale of the book, still
untouched. The End of the Tether is a story of sea-life in a rather
special way; and the most intimate thing I can say of it is this: that
having lived that life fully, amongst its men, its thoughts and
sensations, I have found it possible, without the slightest misgiving,
in all sincerity of heart and peace of conscience, to conceive the
existence of Captain Whalley's personality and to relate the manner of
his end. This statement acquires some force from the circumstance that
the pages of that story--a fair half of the book--are also the product
of experience. That experience belongs (like "Youth's") to the time
before I ever thought of putting pen to paper. As to its "reality" that
is for the readers to determine. One had to pick up one's facts here and
there. More skill would have made them more real and the whole
composition more interesting. But here we are approaching the veiled
region of artistic values which it would be improper and indeed
dangerous for me to enter. I have looked over the proofs, have corrected
a misprint or two, have changed a word or two--and that's all. It is not
very likely that I shall ever read The End of the Tether again. No more
need be said. It accords best with my feelings to part from Captain
Whalley in affectionate silence.
J. C.
1917.
TYPHOON
The main characteristic of this volume consists in this, that all the
stories composing it belong not only to the same period but have been
written one after another in the order in which they appear in the book.
The period is that which follows on my connection with _Blackwood's
Magazine_. I had just finished writing The End of the Tether and was
casting about for some subject which could be developed in a shorter
form than the tales in the volume of "Youth" when the instance of a
steamship full of returning coolies from Singapore to some port in
northern China occurred to my recollection. Years before I had heard it
being talked about in the East as a recent occurrence. It was for us
merely one subject of conversation amongst many others of the kind. Men
earning their bread in any very specialized occupation will talk shop,
not only because it is the most vital interest of their lives but also
because they have not much knowledge of other subjects. They have never
had the time to get acquainted with them. Life, for most of us, is not
so much a hard as an exacting taskmaster.
I never met anybody personally concerned in this affair, the interest of
which for us was, of course, not the bad weather but the extraordinary
complication brought into the ship's life at a moment of exceptional
stress by the human element below her deck. Neither was the story itself
ever enlarged upon in my hearing. In that company each of us could
imagine easily what the whole thing was like. The financial difficulty
of it, presenting also a human problem, was solved by a mind much too
simple to be perplexed by anything in the world except men's idle talk
for which it was not adapted.
From the first the mere anecdote, the mere statement I might say, that
such a thing had happened on the high seas, appeared to me a sufficient
subject for meditation. Yet it was but a bit of a sea yarn after all. I
felt that to bring out its deeper significance which was quite apparent
to me, something other, something more was required; a leading motive
that would harmonize all these violent noises, and a point of view that
would put all that elemental fury into its proper place.
What was needed of course was Captain MacWhirr. Directly I perceived him
I could see that he was the man for the situation. I don't mean to say
that I ever saw Captain MacWhirr in the flesh, or had ever come in
contact with his literal mind and his dauntless temperament. MacWhirr is
not an acquaintance of a few hours, or a few weeks, or a few months. He
is the product of twenty years of life. My own life. Conscious invention
had little to do with him. If it is true that Captain MacWhirr never
walked and breathed on this earth (which I find for my part extremely
difficult to believe) I can also assure my readers that he is perfectly
authentic. I may venture to assert the same of every aspect of the
story, while I confess that the particular typhoon of the tale was not a
typhoon of my actual experience.
At its first appearance "Typhoon," the story, was classed by some
critics as a deliberately intended storm-piece. Others picked out
MacWhirr, in whom they perceived a definite symbolic intention. Neither
was exclusively my intention. Both the typhoon and Captain MacWhirr
presented themselves to me as the necessities of the deep conviction
with which I approached the subject of the story. It was their
opportunity. It was also my opportunity, and it would be vain to
discourse about what I made of it in a handful of pages, since the
pages themselves are here, between the covers of this volume, to speak
for themselves.
This is a belated reflection. If it had occurred to me before it would
have perhaps done away with the existence of this Author's Note; for,
indeed, the same remark applies to every story in this volume. None of
them are stories of experience in the absolute sense of the word.
Experience in them is but the canvas of the attempted picture. Each of
them has its more than one intention. With each the question is what the
writer has done with his opportunity; and each answers the question for
itself in words which, if I may say so without undue solemnity, were
written with a conscientious regard for the truth of my own sensations.
And each of those stories, to mean something, must justify itself in its
own way to the conscience of each successive reader.
Falk--the second story in the volume--offended the delicacy of one
critic at least by certain peculiarities of its subject. But what is the
subject of Falk? I personally do not feel so very certain about it. He
who reads must find out for himself. My intention in writing Falk was
not to shock anybody. As in most of my writings I insist not on the
events but on their effect upon the persons in the tale. But in
everything I have written there is always one invariable intention, and
that is to capture the reader's attention, by securing his interest and
enlisting his sympathies for the matter in hand, whatever it may be,
within the limits of the visible world and within the boundaries of
human emotions.
I may safely say that Falk is absolutely true to my experience of
certain straightforward characters combining a perfectly natural
ruthlessness with a certain amount of moral delicacy. Falk obeys the law
of self-preservation without the slightest misgivings as to right, but
at a crucial turn of that ruthlessly preserved life he will not
condescend to dodge the truth. As he is presented as sensitive enough to
be affected permanently by a certain unusual experience, that experience
had to be set by me before the reader vividly; but it is not the subject
of the tale. If we go by mere facts then the subject is Falk's attempt
to get married; in which the narrator of the tale finds himself
unexpectedly involved both on its ruthless and its delicate side.
Falk shares with one other of my stories (The Return in the "Tales of
Unrest" volume) the distinction of never having been serialized. I think
the copy was shown to the editor of some magazine who rejected it
indignantly on the sole ground that "the girl never says anything." This
is perfectly true. From first to last Hermann's niece utters no word in
the tale--and it is not because she is dumb, but for the simple reason
that whenever she happens to come under the observation of the narrator
she has either no occasion or is too profoundly moved to speak. The
editor, who obviously had read the story, might have perceived that for
himself. Apparently he did not, and I refrained from pointing out the
impossibility to him because, since he did not venture to say that "the
girl" did not live, I felt no concern at his indignation.